Inflatable evacuation slides and/or slides rafts are now installed on substantially all passenger-carrying aircraft to provide a means for rapid evacuation from the aircraft in the event of an emergency. These inflatable evacuation devices are normally folded in an uninflated condition into a pack requiring a minimum of space in the interior of the aircraft door or immediately adjacent thereto. With the aircraft door closed a girt bar extending from the inflatable evacuation slide is connected to brackets on the floor inside the aircraft doorway such that in the event of an emergency it is only necessary to open the aircraft door to automatically deploy the slide. With the door opening, the girt bar will pull the evacuation slide from its container thereby allowing the slide to fall through the now open doorway. Subsequently, the evacuation slide is rapidly inflated and is then ready for the evacuation of passengers within a very short period of time following the opening of the door.
In the normal situation the aircraft door is situated so that the inflatable evacuation slide can extend directly outward therefrom with the bottom of the slide resting on a lower surface to provide a straight-line sliding surface from the aircraft door to the lower surface. An example of this type of slide can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,357.
There are some situations, however, in which the aircraft door or emergency exit opens out onto the aircraft wing. In this case, the evacuees may walk out onto the wing and slide off the trailing edge, or a walkway may be provided on the wing with an inflatable evacuation slide extending from the walkway to the ground. An example of this type of walkway and evacuation slide can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,692,144. Where, however, there is not an unobstructed path from the aircraft door to the lower surface upon which the aircraft is at rest or the aircraft door does not open out onto the wing surface, neither of the two above-mentioned types of slides can be utilized. An example of this situation would be a door located a short distance aft from where the aircraft wing is attached to the aircraft fuselage. Since the wing normally extends backward at an acute angle from the aircraft fuselage, the wing surface would normally interfere with the deployment of an evacuation slide from a door such as this. U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,645 is an example of an evacuation slide useful in this situation.
If, however, there is an inflatable evacuation slide extending from an aircraft exit aft of the trailing edge of the aircraft wing, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,645, the slide would prevent a walkway on the wing and an inflatable evacuation slide extending from the walkway to the ground. Also, with such a slide, the evacuees would have to proceed farther out on the wing surface in order to jump to the ground from the trailing edge thereof in order to avoid the slide.
In all of the above cases, the evacuation device, be it slide or ramp/slide, is stored at the elevated egress for which it is intended to be used. In other words, a single evacuation device can be used at only a single elevated egress and thus does provide evacuation from any other egress at the same time.